Once
again, members of the U.S. Congress have fallen victim to a Russia-related
scheme. It appears to have been perpetrated by shady foreign agitators. This
latest incident involves legislation called "The Magnitsky Bill."
Foreign Relations Committee chair Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) led a
voice vote that approved it on June 7.

This Magnitsky Bill is ostensibly about the 2009 death of Russian Sergei
Magnitsky. He was refused medical treatment for his illnesses while in
pre-trial detention. His arrest had been in connection with a large tax-evasion
case.

But the Bill purports his death is part of a deadly pattern in Russia:
dissenters get rubbed out. Magnitsky's defenders claim he had been singled out
for his criticism of the government. At the same time, though, the death was
called a tragedy by Vladimir Putin. Dmitry Medvedev dismissed a number of top
local and federal prison officials. With Russia's officialdom repudiating
the treatment Magnitsky received, it's hard to understand the role Ros-Lehtinen
envisioned for the seemingly superfluous legislation.

With talk of "the Russian state's contempt for the rule of law," the Bill
proclaims "anyone can be silenced," adding that there is grave danger
in "exposing the wrongdoing of officials of the Government of the Russian Federation."

The evidence? The Bill presents a non sequiturial litany of Russian tragedies,
including the murders of American journalist Paul Klebnikov and Russian
journalist Anna Politkovskaya. But all that doesn't align to support the Bill's
overall theme that dissenters get killed.

This isn't Ros-Lehtinen's first Russian witch hunt. In 2007, she introduced
legislation accusing the Russian government of poisoning reputed former spy
Alexander Litvinenko in London.
World headlines trumpeted "Former KGB Spy Murdered on Orders of Putin." They cited a
deathbed statement by Litvinenko that contained the accusation.

Ros-Lehtinen had called
Litvinenko a dissident. Her resolution seemed to say that another dissenter got
rubbed out.

The only trouble with that is the whole murder story was a fabrication. I wrote
a book titled The Phony Litvinenko Murder. In it I show that Litvinenko was not
a spy, and he never worked for the KGB. What's more, the London coroner never deemed his death to be a
homicide. And the deathbed statement? It turned out to be a fake. A former
Soviet citizen later confessed that it was he who wrote the words, not
Litvinenko. He also admitted there was no evidence to back up his accusation
against Putin.

So Ros-Lehtinen's resolution literally made a big deal out of nothing.

The fabricator of the deathbed statement turns out to be part of a London-based
cabal of former Russians. They hired a top London PR firm to promote their
phony story about Litvinenko. According to widely-circulated news reports, this
group's aim is to depose the Russian government by force. The group wants to
install Prince Harry as a monarch in Russia.

Doesn't all that sound utterly preposterous? But it seems to be the kind of
nonsense Ros-Lehtinen was taken in by.

I don't know if those same people cooked up the Magnitsky Bill's indictment of Russia.
But listen to what a Massachusetts congressman
said when he introduced the Magnitsky Bill: "I would also like to
underscore that this effort is far from just a U.S. initiative. Similar
legislation is being considered in nearly a dozen other legislatures around the
world." So this looks like just another foreign-orchestrated flimflam. I wonder
whose PR firm is coordinating this international effort!

Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen seems to have committed herself to a perpetual
Russian witch hunt. She's cast her lot with the foreign agitators. But the
Congressmen who have sponsored the bill should wise-up and opt-out. They may
have been duped at first. But the sponsor and co-sponsors should now withdraw and
dissociate themselves from Ros-Lehtinen's nonsense.

William Dunkerley is author of the books "Litvinenko Murder Case Solved," "The Phony Litvinenko Murder," "Ukraine in the Crosshairs," and "Medvedev's Media Affairs," all published by Omnicom Press. He is a media business analyst and consultant (more...)